Detachable chairlift - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A detachable chairlift or high-speed chairlift is a type of passenger aerial lift

Aerial lift

An aerial lift is a means of transportation in which cabins, cars, gondolas or open chairs are hauled above the ground by means of one or more cables.Types of aerial lifts include:...

, which, like a fixed-grip chairlift

Chairlift

An elevated passenger ropeway, or chairlift, is a type of aerial lift, which consists of a continuously circulating steel cable loop strung between two end terminals and usually over intermediate towers, carrying a series of chairs...

, consists of numerous chairs attached to a constantly moving wire rope

Wire rope

thumb|Steel wire rope Wire rope is a type of rope which consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a helix. Initially wrought iron wires were used, but today steel is the main material used for wire ropes....

(called a haul rope) that is strung between two (or more) terminals over intermediate towers. They are now commonplace at all but the smallest of ski resort

Ski resort

A ski resort is a resort developed for skiing and other winter sports. In Europe a ski resort is a town or village in a ski area - a mountainous area, where there are ski trails and supporting services such as hotels and other accommodation, restaurants, equipment rental and a ski lift system...

s. Some are installed at tourist attractions as well as for urban transportation.

The significance of detachable chairlift technology is primarily the speed and capacity. Detachable chairlifts move far faster than their fixed-grip brethren, averaging 1200 feet per minute (13.6 mph, 22.03km/h, 6 m/s) versus a typical fix-grip speed of 500 ft/min (5.5 mph, 8.9km/h, 2.5 m/s). Because the cable moves faster than most passengers could safely disembark and load, each chair is connected to the cable by a powerful spring-loaded cable grip

Cable grip

A cable grip is a device for propelling a vehicle by attaching to a wire cable running at a constant speed. The vehicle may be suspended from the cable, as in the case of aerial lifts such as a gondola lift , may be guided by rails, as in a cable traction railway, or may be self-guiding, as in a...

which detaches at terminals, allowing the chair to slow considerably for convenient loading and unloading at a typical speed of 200 ft/min (2.2 mph, 3.6km/h, 1 m/s), a speed slower even than fixed-grip bunny chairlifts.

Another advantage of detaching chairs is the ability to remove chairs during severe weather in order to reduce stress on the rope and towers. Furthermore, operating the unladen rope during extreme weather is effective at preventing—or greatly reducing—ice and snow accumulation on the sheaves and rope. This saves considerable time, expense and hazard when opening the chair for operation, which would otherwise require workers to climb each tower and chip away ice and shovel snow.

Chairlifts are made in a variety of sizes, carrying from 2 to 8 passengers. All chairs on a given chairlift usually have the same capacity. Slang terms for the different sizes include "doubles", "triples", "quads", and "six packs". Detachable chairlifts may also be described as "high speed" or "express", which results in terms such as "high speed quad" and "express quad".

Some detachable chairlifts have so-called bubble chairs, which add a retractable acrylic glass

Acrylic glass

Poly is a transparent thermoplastic, often used as a light or shatter-resistant alternative to glass. It is sometimes called acrylic glass. Chemically, it is the synthetic polymer of methyl methacrylate...

dome to protect passengers from weather.

An alternative system for reconciling slow boarding speeds with fast rope speeds is the carpet lift: the chairs move at full speed even through the terminal. Boarding passengers are progressively accelerated on a system of conveyor belts of carpet-like material until nearly matching the chair speed.

On Sunday, 26 December 2004, Lech am Arlberg

Lech am Arlberg

Lech am Arlberg is a mountain village and an exclusive ski resort in the Bludenz district of Vorarlberg, in western Austria, on the banks of the river Lech. In terms of both geography and history, Lech belongs to the Tannberg district...

and Schröcken in the Bregenzerwald, became the first chairlifts to have heated seats when five Doppelmayr

Doppelmayr

The Doppelmayr Garaventa Group is an Austrian-Swiss company that manufactures chairlifts, cable cars, gondolas, surface tows for ski and amusement parks as well as urban people movers and material handling systems. To date, Doppelmayr and Garaventa have produced over 13,700 installations in 78...

detachable chairlifts offer skiers the added luxury of a warm seat on the uphill trip.

Doppelmayr

The detachable chairlift didn't start with a chairlift, rather, it started with the Platter lift

Platter lift

A platter lift , platter pull or button lift is a surface lift, a mechanized system for pulling skiers and snowboarders uphill, along the surface of the slope. In Europe they are also known as Poma lifts...

in 1908, as the sticks left the cable and attached when someone loaded onto the stick. A detachable two person chairlift was installed in Cairngorm Mountain, Scotland in 1961. In 1981, the first ever high speed detachable quad in the world was installed, the Doppelmayr-built Quicksilver SuperChair at Breckenridge Ski Resort

Breckenridge Ski Resort

Breckenridge Ski Resort, or just Breck, is perenially one of North America's top 2 most visited ski resorts, and is located in Summit County, Colorado in the town of Breckenridge...

in Colorado, in 1981. This lift was relocated in 1999 to the Owl's Head Ski area in Quebec. Until 1985, this was also the only detachable quad in Colorado

Colorado

Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

when Vail Ski Resort

Vail Ski Resort

Vail Ski Resort is located in Eagle County, Colorado, next to the town of Vail. Vail Mountain, at , is the largest single mountain ski resort in the United States, featuring seven bowls and intermediate gladed terrain in Blue Sky Basin...

installed four Doppelmayr high speed quads. The original grip was slightly modified later before the Vail quads were built. Known as the Spring Series, these grips were known as DS-104 grips on high speed quads and DS-108s on eight passenger gondolas. In 1995, a newer grip was introduced called the Torsion
Torsion (mechanics)
In solid mechanics, torsion is the twisting of an object due to an applied torque. In sections perpendicular to the torque axis, the resultant shear stress in this section is perpendicular to the radius....

series. Torsion grips were called DT-104 if on a high speed quad, DT-106 on a high speed six pack, or DT-108 on an eight passenger gondola. The Torsion grip is still made today as Doppelmayr CTEC

Doppelmayr CTEC

Doppelmayr is an aerial lift manufacturer based in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Saint-Jérôme, Quebec, and a subsidiary of the worldwide Doppelmayr Garaventa Group. The North American company was formed in 2001 after the merger of Garaventa of Goldau, Switzerland, and Doppelmayr of Wolfurt, Austria....

's primary grip option.

Unlike Poma

Poma

Poma, also known as Pomagalski S.A. is a French company, specialising in construction of cable-driven lift systems, including fixed and detachable chairlifts, gondola lifts, funiculars, aerial tramways, people movers, and surface lifts. Poma has installed more than 7800 devices on five continents,...

's grips, Doppelmayr grips are double position grips. When the chair enters a terminal, the angled roller is pushed down by a metal strip, which opens a grip jaw. The jaw remains open until the chair attaches back to the cable when leaving the terminal. Grip clamping force is measured just prior to the double position grips reattaching to the haul rope while a carrier (chair) is exiting the terminal, in contrast to Poma's grips, in which grip force can be measured as the grip travels through the contour. Insufficient grip force triggers an alarm and brings the lift to a halt before the carrier reaches the first breakover tower after the terminal. Because of this design, most Doppelmayr detachable lifts are designed to allow operation in reverse. This allows a grip force alarmed grip and carrier to be backed into the terminal in reverse and checked or taken offline.

Terminals

The original terminals on the Quicksilver Quad were all completely enclosed, but in 1985, in time for the Vail Ski Resort

Vail Ski Resort

high speed quads, the terminal design changed to what is now classified as a CLD-260 terminal. These and the older terminals were the only types of terminals to use chains instead of tires for contours. In 1989, the old design was officially retired with the addition of the Avanti high speed quad at Vail, and a new design, called the UNI, was introduced. This design was utilized from 1989 to the last year of the DS-104 grip in 1994. In 1992, the design was changed slightly mainly in the entry funnels area. With the introduction of the Torsion series came the UNI-M terminal, which underwent a number of minor cosmetic changes between 1995 and 2002. Currently, two options are offered, the UNI-G terminal, and the UNI-GS terminal, which can be distinguished through the appearance of the end windows.

Poma

entered this market within two to three years of the Quicksilver Quad's installation. Although hard to prove, the earliest known Poma quads are from circa 1985, such as the Coney Glade at Snowmass

Snowmass

Snowmass may refer to:*Snowmass Village, Colorado, USA, a town in Pitkin County**Snowmass , part of the Aspen/Snowmass ski resort complex*Snowmass, Colorado, USA, an unincorporated town in Pitkin County, known locally as "Old Snowmass"...

, the high speed quad at Mission Ridge

Mission Ridge Ski Area

Mission Ridge Ski Area is a ski area located near Wenatchee, Washington. The base elevation is at 4570 feet with the peak at 6820 feet .Mission Ridge receives an average of of snow per year with over 300 sunny days.- Alpine Skiing :...

(installed in 2005, ran at Winter Park Resort

Winter Park Resort

Winter Park Resort is an alpine ski resort in Winter Park, Colorado in the Rocky Mountains. Located just off U.S. Highway 40, the resort is about an hour and a half's drive from Denver, Colorado....

from 1985 to 2005), and others. Many of the original high speed quads they built were known as Alpha Falcon lifts, because they utilized a Falcon terminal with an Alpha drive unit at the far end. Very few lifts exist with this style. Later on, the Falcon drive terminal was modified to house the bullwheel inside the main terminal structure itself, eliminating the need to run the cable through the terminal. Poma was also slower at introducing tire contours over chains, and it wasn't until 1992 that tire contours were used by the company with the introduction of the Challenger terminal. This terminal would undergo changes with the windows before officially retired in 1998. At that time, the new Omega T-Grip came out and a new terminal known as the Phatboy (homophone and pronounced Fat-Boy) was introduced for it. It was replaced by a newer variant that mainly modified the windows on the ends in 2003.

Unlike Doppelmayr, the Poma grips are single position. In such method, they are pressed down, which opens the jaws to detach the chair, and then the jaws close and the spring is released. The process is reversed for attachment. This design allows grip force to be measured as the grip travels through the contour, and for the lift to come to a stop before the grip is reattached to the haul rope if insufficient grip force is detected. Unlike Doppelmayr lifts that check grip force while a grip and carrier are leaving the terminal, most Poma detachable lifts are not built to operate in reverse because a grip force failed grip can be brought to a halt within the terminal.

Poma

Poma

is also known for building some very unusual lifts, mostly at Breckenridge Ski Resort

Breckenridge Ski Resort

Breckenridge Ski Resort, or just Breck, is perenially one of North America's top 2 most visited ski resorts, and is located in Summit County, Colorado in the town of Breckenridge...

, which include North America's only double loading chairlift (Quicksilver Six), the first high speed lift in Colorado with a midway load (SuperConnect), and the highest lift in North America, the Imperial Express SuperChair, at 12,840 feet.

Leitner-Poma

Leitner-Poma of America is a North American aerial lift manufacturer based in Grand Junction, Colorado. It is the North American subsidiary of French-based Poma, which is owned by the Italian company Leitner Technologies, part of the Leitner Group. The North American company was formed in 2000 when...

is the present day version of Poma

Poma

. They continue to make all types of detatchable chairlifts using their Omega Chair, Leitner Grip, and Omega Termainal.

Doppelmayer/CTEC

Doppelmayer CTEC is making their Garaventa Carrier and their UNI-GS terminal today.

External links

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